needles attached singly along its twigs, whereas the dawn redwood has 
needles in pairs; and the bald cypress has larger, more spherical cones. 
Bald cypress wood resists rotting and thus is especially valuable for 
construction around water, such as for pilings and docks. 
With some differences of interpretation, the genus Taxodium is made 
up of two or three species of the southern U.S. and Mexico. The fossil 
record shows that now-extinct Taxodium species once grew in Europe, 
Asia, and northern North America. Fossils of our “southern” species, T. 
distichum, have turned up as 
far north as British Columbia. 
Taxodium comes from 
Greek for “yew-like”, since 
the leaves look a little like 
yew leaves, and distichum is a 
Latin botanical term indicat- 
ing leaves in two rows. 
See Map: B, O, 29 
BITTERNUT HICKORY, 
MOCKERNUT HICKORY 
Carya cordiformis, Carya tomentosa 
About eight hickory species are native to 
Missouri, where they are frequent in 
upland and lowland woods. They rank 
high in beauty, diversity, and abundance 
in the eastern deciduous forest, lending 
their name to “oak-hickory” forests and 
“Old Hickory”, Andrew Jackson, the 
tough 7th President of the U.S. 
Bitternut hickory ranges across eastern 
North America from Quebec to Florida, 
usually occupying bottomlands and cool, 
shady slopes. It differs conspicuously 
from other hickories by having short 
Cn contro wings or flanges on the husk of its nut. 
The distinctive winter buds are long and narrow, with two sulfur-yellow, 
powdery, irregular scales face-to-face, a little like two hands clasped in 
